Valve In Control Of Shutoff? Developers Burned By STEAM?

Zeiram Wing writes: Waking one morning ready to enjoy a freshly purchased game via STEAM, the client notified me of an update. Reading while it downloaded, the release notes stated yet another fix for the recently released Left 4 Dead 2.

Let me clarify before continuing. This was a STEAM CLIENT update just for Left 4 Dead 2, not a game patch.

Now, there's been talk of this recently, geared more towards the developer side of things, but the recent string of Valve-game-only client updates have me pondering another side of the question:

If you read the blog, you'd understand that he's complaining about how Valve is more quick to respond to client issues with their own games rather than 3rd party titles. Which could take months to be fixed, making the game unplayable though there are no other problems other than it having been downloaded off Steam.

I really dont think he thought this article through enough. One case of this happening doesn't warrant an article of this nature. It's complete heresy and I haven't heard of this happening in any other aspect. That's the trouble with game blogs with WordPress access, they write things that they haven't even fully investigated. And this is why they'll never gain credibility. Bring some more evidence and people might take you seriously.

Yeah and Valve internally use the latest Steam SDK, what makes everyone so sure that this issue would have actually affected other games on Steam? Has a developer complained? Has anyone else said anything? Or is the author just presuming there's an issue when there appears to be none?

there is no evidence that the problem is caused by Steam, or that VALVe could have done anything to it. He claims it took months before the patch came out for Bionic Commando, maybe BC's developer is responsible for the delay.

I would really appreciate it if the "news" on N4G had more solid argument sometimes, rather than a simple statement that isn't really backed up by anything.

Of course Valve is going to fix Steam quicker when it comes to their own games. They know them better, and they have been developed with Steam integration in mind.

For Valve to fix/patch Steam when it comes to a game another dev has made it's obviously going to take a lot longer time to understand what the problem is, get the fix coded, put it through testing and so on.

It's not in Valve's interest to delay fixing Steam. The platform makes money selling games! If Steam doesn't work, then devs will sell through D2D or one of the other DL services, and Steam would quickly lose it's market share! Why would Valve want that?

They do the same thing with new games releasing on time. They'll do a count down for a game not made by Valve, and when it reaches 0, it still won't download until the next morning when a Valve employee decides to come into work and allow us access to it.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love Steam. For the most part it works great and it's very convenient. On one hand I do get a little irritated when I pre-order a game and it doesn't unlock when it says it's going to, but at the time, Steam is a free service and a convenience, so I don't really think I have much of a right to ask for too much from it.

I think the blogger has a point. But however, Steam is a great service and if devs don’t like it, there are other avenues to sell their game. I would love to see more Digital Distributors in the arena. I wouldn’t mind all companies that distributes games have their own system. Steam and Impulse are very small downloads and if one goes down, you have another to play your other games. As of right now if Steam goes down, I’ll have 80% of my games down, unless I play them single player. Currently I have over 130 games on Steam (not bragging, because I bought most on deals). The others are less than 20.

such a horrible article, with absolutely no research done on the part of the author.

Straight from steams website. "Your game can use the same platform that supports over 500 PC game titles on Steam. Steamworks gives you access to a connected community of 20 million gamers and a robust world-wide network, while providing a rich set of proven features that let you develop, publish, and protect your game.

Steamworks is entirely free. There are no licensing fees and there's no charge for bandwidth, retail copies, or OEM distribution.

With Steamworks, you avoid the overhead and delay of certification requirements. Distribute your game on your terms, updating it as quickly and frequently as you see fit."

i.e you put the game on steam and you update the game as you see fit. Valve does not block updates for any game in the business world that's called being counter-productive. They update their own creations and it would be safe to assume from reading the above they expect other devs to do the same.

That has to be it, because I'm sure valve requires that each dev give them the source code for all their games, their women, and first born sons after signing a contract in blood to use a open platform ;D

Wait, wait, wait, wait...So a company who releases a game on THIER OWN STORE isn't allowed to update THIER OWN GAMES? Steam is letting other companys use Steam to sell thier products and its much easyer for Valve to fix problems with thier own games because, wait for it, they made and releasesd it and feel obligated to fix thier own mistakes before some of the others, thats just how it is. Not to mention this idiot doesn't even have the slightest bit of evidence to go against the thought that maybe is was very hard for them to fix that Bionic Comando issue. But is guess thinking isn't part of this guys' job. (Besides Bionic Comando sucked anyway)